“I remember there was quite a buzz about it,” recalls Gary Bell, a longtime HIV advocate and director of Bebashi, a health service agency in Philadelphia with a special focus on serving people of color with HIV. What follows is a powerful tale of Beckett’s legal, medical and emotional journey. He ends up with a young attorney, Joe Miller, played by Denzel Washington. Beckett wants to sue, but has trouble finding a lawyer to take his case. When the firm figures those two facts out, he alleges, it fires him. Played by Tom Hanks, Beckett is a bright young lawyer at a high-profile law firm. And, hundreds of thousands of moviegoers were about to meet Andrew Beckett in the movie Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Convention Center had just opened. The Phillies had just won the National League pennant. Today, two decades later, the movie still resonates for many, even as people work to write a new script about the disease, in Philadelphia and across the nation. Philadelphia, the city, also played a major role in the film’s success, as a setting and as a source of material. It changed the national conversation about HIV-AIDS. The film accomplished a lot more than that. It would go on to win two Oscars, Tom Hanks for best actor and Bruce Springsteen for best song, and earn more than $100 million in box office sales. Twenty years ago this month, the movie Philadelphia debuted in theaters. An in-depth look at the making of the film, its impact, and the distance traveled in fighting HIV and AIDS.
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